Uncle Sam Napolon

Your humble narrator finds himself on the outskirts of our nation's capitol this weekend, as we prepare for That One Thing on January 20th.

To be honest, I'd rather be in Park City right now showcasing my off-beat film about bicultural life in America that has critics all abuzz. But that film doesn't exist. Yet.

As luck would have it, I'll still be getting my fix of skin-chapping frigid temps and soul-crushing industry douchebags, after all.

Yep, there hasn't been this many Hollyvood types congregating in Vashangton since I ran into the crew of HBO's "K-Street" in 2003. They were shooting right around the corner of a local comedy club that was hosting a show called "The Arabian Knights", which featured a bunch of upstart comedians from L.A. you now may have heard of.(The location wasn't far from another place you'll find a lot of Middleastern Californians.)

At the time I was rolling around like driftwood in my mid-twenties. Broke and direction-less. Not helping things was hearing the smack from annoying relatives.

Steven Soderbergh and his crew behind "K-Street" reunited again a couple years later for "Syriana", which was based on two memoirs published after 9/11 by Robert Baer, a former CIA operative.

Baer recently put out another sensationalizing book this time regarding foreign policy with Iran. A few months ago the aptly-named Hammer Museum in Vestvood hosted an interesting discussion between Baer and the president of Washington DC-based NIAC, Mr. Trita Parsi, who didn't have to beg to differ. This week The Huffington Post asked Dr. Parsi to share his thoughts on the latest geopolitical flareup.